1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an Obje network device service, and more particularly, to an Obje network device service apparatus and method in a Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) network system which may use an Obje device in the UPnP network system.
2. Description of Related Art
With the popularization of high-speed Internet and digital home appliances, a home network, a primary form of a ubiquitous network, has been appearing.
Middleware, such as a Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) and Obje, is used to discover (e.g. detect) and control devices in a home network and provide home network services.
Obje is a type of middleware developed by the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), and guarantees the interoperability among devices in an ad-hoc environment. Generally, a prearranged agreement regarding performance and interface of a device is required in order to guarantee the interoperability among devices. Obje reduces the prearranged agreement requirement regarding the interface, and thereby may enable the interoperability among devices. Also, Obje uses mobile codes, and thereby may alleviate deficiencies and improve performance of the devices. The mobile code includes a network protocol handler, a content handler, and a user interface.
A unit module providing services in an Obje network is called an Obje component. The Obje network comprises an Obje source component, an Obje sink component, and an Obje client. The Obje source component provides the Obje sink component with data streams and the mobile codes, which is necessary for managing the data streams. The Obje client discovers Obje components, and generates a session for data transmission between the Obje components. The Obje sink component includes a mobile code execution platform which is operated by loading the mobile codes provided by the Obje source component. Such Obje middleware may alleviate deficiencies and improve performance of the Obje component by using the mobile codes. Accordingly, the interoperability among devices may be guaranteed by only a minimal prearranged agreement.
UPnP is a type of middleware for controlling personal computer (PC)—oriented home appliances. In this instance, the PC refers to the PC generally developed by Microsoft Corporation, Intel Corporation, and the like. UPnP is based on a standard Internet protocol such as Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP), HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP), General Event Notification Architecture (GENA), Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), Simple Service Discovery Protocol (SSDP), extensible Markup Language (XML), and the like. Also, UPnP does not require device drivers and a use of a particular application program interface (API), and is unaffected by various types of physical network layers, operation systems, and programming languages.
A UPnP network comprises a UPnP device and a UPnP control point. The UPnP device provides services, and responds to a request of the UPnP control point. The UPnP control point discovers the UPnP device and requests the services.
In the UPnP middleware, a profile is required to be defined for each device, and devices which use a different profile may not receive and transmit messages or contents with each other. The UPnP control point obtains a description from a UPnP device, and controls a corresponding device by using information included in the description.
Conversely, in the Obje middleware, only minimal interfaces which satisfy every type of device are defined, instead of defining profiles for each device. Also, in the Obje middleware, when having a same data type, a sink component and a source component may receive and transmit contents, regardless of device type.
However, the UPnP middleware is substantially a standard of home network middleware. Also, a Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA), an alliance of leading companies such as Microsoft Corporation, Intel Corporation, Samsung, Sony Corporation, Philips Electronics, and the like for commercializing home networks, selected the UPnP middleware as a standard middleware.
Accordingly, building a home network with only Obje devices may be practically unfeasible. Thus, an apparatus for controlling an Obje device by a UPnP control point in the home network environment including UPnP devices as well as Obje devices is required.